Process diary

Petra Awad

'When language becomes petrified by the academies, ravaged and made barren by journalism, its true spirit seeks refuge amongst children and mad poets.’ – Richard Huelsenbeck

My body of work explores the use and misuse of language in society to control and persuade us into submission. The power of words is known by governments and institutions but unknown by the majority of citizens. For Dada, the role of poetry was to create and develop an ideology against the closed and prosaic, a permanent atmosphere of openness to which the energetic oppositions of contradictory elements is absolutely essential. Man is dependent on his environment and in that dependence seeks the law of his development. Thus, the lies we are encircled with hinder our growth as political lifestyles. What appears to be a work of destruction is ultimately one of hope, as language contains the light of optimism that can guide us against times of pessimism.